For years, people have recognized the health benefits of aerobic exercise. As a result, many stationary exercise devices have been introduced, including bicycles, treadmills, rowing machines and stair climbers, to name but a few. These devices typically engage users in repetitive exercise motions, such as pedaling, stepping, pulling or running. This exercise movement is resisted (often variably) to induce physical exertion, leading to aerobic exercise.
Despite the many benefits of exercise, some users find it tedious or boring, and this has discouraged many from regular exercise. Coincidentally, while some people shunned exercise, a large number (particularly teenagers) became television and video game enthusiasts. This development did not go unnoticed by the exercise equipment industry, which over the years has attempted to make exercise more interesting by associating it with some form of visual entertainment, particularly television or video games. And although there have been many attempts to meld exercise and video, none of these efforts have yielded completely satisfactory results.
By way of background, many commercially available video systems, such as those sold under the trademarks Nintendo, sega and Atari, are computer-based interactive video game systems which display game output on a conventional television. Game control peripherals (often referred to as "joysticks") are interfaced to the game system through plug-in ports or jacks to provide user interaction with the action depicted on the screen. Typically, removable memory cartridges containing various programs allow the game system to execute different games or other interactive programs. While these cartridge-type game systems are of great interest, interactive video programs, including games, can be played on other types of video systems, such as, for example, personal computers. Moreover, video systems encompass an array of technologies including interactive video games, educational programs, broadcast and cable television and prerecorded video systems such as VCRs.
There have been attempts to interface exercise machines with interactive video systems by treating the exercise machine as simply another type of game control peripheral or joystick. Some examples of these efforts include U.S. Pat. No. 4,817,950 (player moves figure of surfer on video screen by moving simulated surfboard with player's feet); U.S. Pat. No. 4,711,477 (movement of pedals, handles and swivel seat by player control aim of video-displayed gun); U.S. Pat. No. 5,054,771 (movement of swingable member and swivel seat controls position of marker on a screen); U.S. Pat. No. 4,512,567 (movement of handlebars and pedal rpm enable stationary bicycle to control video game); and U.S. Pat. No. 5,139,261 (adjustable pressure sensors placed on floor generate video game input when pressed by a user).
Other, more sophisticated, efforts have used a video game or like apparatus to control the load resistance experienced by the user. Some examples of these efforts include U.S. Pat. No. 5,001,632 (speed or skill level of opponent in video game increases when heart rate falls outside of predetermined range); U.S. Pat. No. 4,709,917 (computer adjusts load resistance of bicycle in accordance with type of terrain depicted in video display of road); and U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,846 (load resistance varied in accordance with simulated hill profile depicted on spinning reel).
None of these attempts have resulted in a practicable and widely accepted combination of exercise equipment and video systems. One reason is that these past efforts tended to focus narrowly on specific game control hardware (such as swivel seats or simulated surfboards). In other cases, these approaches address only the specific manner in which a video game system might respond to exercise conditions (for example, scenery passes by more quickly with increased pedal rpm, or opponents become more powerful when heart rate is too low). These limitations are unacceptable to both users and game developers. On the one hand, users demand hardware that will execute a wide variety of games and programs. On the other hand, developers can only afford to invest in programs that will execute on a large number of systems.